Lincoln Ho

November 1999

Hi everybody!

Sorry, but this column will be a short one. I did promise the
excerpts from my book so I will put them in. I don't have much time
so it will be all I'm putting in here, I have plenty of accumulated
homework to do. Anyway, these are excerpts from my book about two
minor crushes I had. These are no longer the people I like, so I
don't really care much if I tell the world. Anyway, I'll also add my
English story in here as well, since it is related to my identity and
stuff. It's a story of life after coming out from the point of view
of my friend. So, here it goes with the excerpts then the story. Be
sure to visit my website and sign my guestbook! It's
http://i.am/lincolnho

Sunny...

...is in one of my classes and I've known him since junior high
but we never really talked much. There are 4 people that stand out in
my list of crushes. Eric and Ian being the two most powerful crushes
in my life, and two more lesser influences. One being Sunny. He's not
a huge crush but he's noticeable in my list.

I don't remember when we started talking but sometime later, he
was in my room and I was alone with him in the house. Don't get me
wrong here. He has a girlfriend. He was over because he wanted some
minidiscs recorded. While he was at my house, he was using my
computer to surf and to look for some MP3 songs, I was picking up his
discman and I went down to get it. My head was like three inches from
his dick. Oh, I wanted him right there and then, but I know he has a
girlfriend and stuff.

Ben...

...is a person that I no longer see anymore since he quit St.
John's Ambulance. He was blonde, cute, and just dumb and I admired
that in him. I didn't get to know him for a long time but I did
manage to get to know his "bud" at St. John's. I'd sit with him and
we'd just talk about stuff. Sometimes he would talk about girls but
he never asked me about it.

During the time that I knew him, he always showed up with a sports
bag and wore track suits, mainly green Adidas. I remember one time
when we were having a movie day watching Star Gate, I had
accidentally spilled some pop on his jacket and pants and I helped
him dry his jacket, which was as close as I got to touching him,
except for the first aid scenarios of course. Before he quit, his
voice changed but I got used to it I guess. I've never seen him since
then but there is one picture of him I have that exists."-990420.

Now here is the story. It's called Lyrics and there's a reason
it's called that. It might not be a big part of the story, in fact,
it's not mentioned a lot but the "answers" and "hidden secrets" are
in the lines. Of course, this is written in my friend's point of view
so he doesn't see things the way I do and it is all supposed to be
him assuming all of this, especially about the feelings and emotions
that he says. The story, however, is based on real life events that
happened to me. The way that he tells it (or the way I wrote it) is
supposed to distort the real situations and make them into a mystery
to answer the writer's questions. Now, on with the story!

Lyrics

By Lincoln Ho

And this page is all of my friend Lincoln. For as long as I have
known him, he has always seemed to amaze me. There is so much about
his character that I admire about and I respect him a lot for
handling his difficult times the way he has. I know that he's been
through a lot, mostly because he's gay, and through all that, he's
still standing proud of who he is, which I think is a great quality
that I very much like about him. For myself, I don't really much care
that he is gay but he sure has changed a lot of the stereotypes of
gay people that I used to think were true.

He and I met about a year ago in grade ten through our interest of
music. He and I both enjoy listening, composing, and learning about
music very much. We both love to write songs and sing. In fact, he
once lent me a tape of his songs sung on a cappella and they are, as
words can put it, annoyingly catchy, though his lyrics are quite
corny. They all seem suicidal and how the world sucks and everything.
I guess he likes that type of music for some sort of reason. I really
don't know why he always writes all these depressing songs.

Another thing that I also like about him is that he tries very
hard at what he wants to do. He told me that he wants to become a
musician and also to move the world. The funny thing is that the only
instrument that he knows how to play is his voice. However, his
effort put into his choral classes to sing better and better are far
much more than I put into Mr. Missals classes. He has always put his
mind on music, he doesn't really care or pay attention to anything
else. I remember that last year at Sherwood Park for the final
concert, he conquered being flat and sung a perfect solo. I don't
doubt for a fact that he was awarded the choral scholarship last
year. It was really strange though, because I received the
scholarship for band and he got it for choir and we are both friends
and everything.

Anyway, deeper inside of the Lincoln that everybody knows, there
is a stronger Lincoln that is locked up just because of his
surroundings. He can achieve so much because he can forget and
forgive so many things that happen to him. I didn't really know about
it until he told me. It just shows how he can be such a good actor,
but he doesn't like acting, he says that its not his thing to show
emotions.

In the beginning, he didn't talk about himself very much but the
inner struggles that he has been going through has given him some
rough times. When he started to talk to me about himself and what has
happened in his life before, it amazes me even more that he hasn't
committed suicide, I'm very serious. According to what he said about
himself before I knew him, he was in a roller coaster with very
extreme highs and lows, all because of something called
discrimination.

When he was still in junior high, he was the editor of the
unofficial school paper. He spent hours every week to put it together
and a lot of teachers and students had weekly subscriptions to it
just because of the content that he put into it. When the newspaper
did start to go into the principals hands about two months later, the
principal felt that he needed to approve of it before any more copies
of the paper were to be circulated. It all went fine until the Delwin
Vriend case started to surface in November 1996. Lincoln, at that
time, was sure of himself by then and decided to write about the case
and how it is okay to be gay.

The single article made the paper banned for two weeks. According
to the principal, this was a paper that went home to some families
and it was inappropriate to have an article like that because it
would negatively influence some families and the school would get
complaints. Lincoln published the article anyway and the article
caused the sales of the paper to increase twice the amount
distributed and the school received no complaints. The principal got
quite upset and he couldn't do anything about it because Lincoln gave
it out off school property. Quite smart, eh?

But that issue of that paper, however, put Lincoln in some
vulnerable places for attack, but he didn't care and nothing happened
to him, until the following April. He was put into a position of a
type of abuse that he wouldn't tell me, and when he told his best
friend, it made the situation worse.

His best friend decided to tell her friends and which caused those
people to tell their friends and as it goes, the person that abused
Lincoln found out and told the principal that Lincoln was passing
rumors about him. When he finally had the guts to explain the truth,
police, psychologists, and his parents were called into the school.
So there were seven people in the room, including his parents, asking
him if the story was true, the pressure lead him to tell them that he
made the whole story up just to get even with that person. And with
the only lie that he told the whole time, he was expelled from the
school because he was said to have disturbed the learning environment
of the students in the school. Gee, I wonder what would of happened
if it was some other person, but of well, life sucks at times.

Lincoln got over it very quickly and forgot about the whole thing,
at least thetas what he told me. His ego is so strong that he can
actually do that and live normally. That I tell you, is incredible.
But still, there was another wave that hit him.

With his involvement in many extracurricular activities, he just
so happens to be part of the Royal Canadian Air Cadets. With cadets,
you get to go to free summer camps and do a lot of fun activities,
which I never found very interesting. Last year, he was able to go on
the air studies course. It was supposed to be his big break from what
had happened but as these stories go, he was in another incident that
partly had to do with his identity.

That summer, Lincoln had with him his daily journal, and because
there weren't enough lockers to go with the number of people in a
room, he had to share his locker with someone else. It just so
happens that the person sharing the locker with him found his journal
and started to read it. Soon enough, the whole floor of the male
barracks were in the same room going through his journal.

Lincoln returned from the mess and as he got onto the floor, he
could hear some familiar words being read out loud. He peeked into
the room and ran back out. He sat at the entrance of the building for
quite a while. I think if it was me, I would of cried but maybe he
did and he didn't tell me. I doubt it would of happened with the way
Lincoln is. He's always happy and everything. It almost seems too
real to be true.

Back to the story, he finally got the guts to go back inside. At
that time, the people were done with the book and a lot of them
looked at him strangely and treated him differently as well. The
people in his room started to make sexual gestures with themselves
like rubbing each other or showing off their behind to him. And poor
Lincoln, all he could do was leave the building again and go to the
canteen to listen to music. And when it was time to be in the
barracks, all he did to avoid it as much as he could was hide
underneath the cover of his fire blanket. Through that whole day, he
was harassed and picked on, by very much the same people over and
over again, and somehow, he got through the day like it was a normal
day, and also without telling the people that could stop it.

The day after that though, the highest ranking officer of the camp
had heard what had happened to Lincoln and called him out of class.
There was supposedly a cadet staff that was in the room listening to
his journal being read and reported it anonymously. Lincoln, put in
another awkward situation, told all of the truth this time and told
the officer about how he felt and how his privacy was invaded. Then
because of what he described happened to him, the situation fell into
the category of sexual harassment and he was given the power to have
some cadets sent home, or even charged with the offense. Now with the
type of person Lincoln is, he never wants to hurt anyone, so he
decided not to do get anyone in trouble. I cannot believe how anyone
could choose to do nothing, but he did and had a great summer.

The whole air studies course was yelled at to not harass Lincoln.
For the ones that didn't know what was happening, the whole incident
was told to them. All the girls thought that he should of got some
people in trouble, some even cried after the officers explained what
had happened the day before.

He made a lot of friends with a lot of people that year, mostly
girls. Hey, that is a good way to get some chicks, eh? Just say that
you're gay and they'll crowd around you like pigeons.

Anyway, he got along with the guys just fine. I guess it sort of
taught the people a lesson, or it was the fear of getting sent home
or charged. Of course, I wasn't there but there probably was a lot
more that he didn't tell me about the camp, but a little incident was
solved and it made that his favorite camp out of the four that he's
been in. He's on his fourth camp right now in Borden or something
down in Ontario. Its supposed to be a scholarship camp of some sort
that you get through cadets. I don't understand why anyone would go
to another camp again after that last camp. This time for six weeks
over the three weeks last time.

There's so many more stories that he has told me and each of them
are just as terrible as this one over and over again. It doesn't make
very much sense to me why he isn't one of the ones on television
where they had one event happen to them that scarred them for their
whole life. Lincoln always seems to see the good side of things and
makes the best out of what he has and what he can do. He does have
times where he looks like he's not into it but he always comes back
and picks himself up again and still manage to care about the people
most important in his life. I guess maybe its because he considers me
his best friend and I'm always mad or grouchy in the mornings. If
only a lot more people were like Lincoln, it would be cool.

He is physical proof that anyone can make it through if you've got
the strength for it. His lack of communication skills, however, is
the only thing that I think he has trouble with. The only thing I
think he communicates well is through the corny lyrics of his, and
his music. He write quite a lot. He's always busy working on his web
site and sticking his works up there. But in the talking and his own
person to person relationships, I think he seems to talk to me pretty
well, I guess."

The End.

Ok, anyway, so that's all. I hope I'll have more time for next
month to write more. Until then, see ya later and God bless you
all!